Frameworks of Critical Race Theory

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lee E. Ross
Keyword(s):  
Native Americans ◽  
Critical Race Theory ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
White Supremacy ◽  
Education History ◽  
Critical Race ◽  
Power Structures ◽  
Race Theory ◽  
Legal Studies ◽  
American Society

Critical race theory (CRT) concerns the study and transformation of relationships among race, (ethnicity), racism, and power. For many scholars, CRT is a theoretical and interpretative lens that analyzes the appearance of race and racism within institutions and across literature, film, art, and other forms of social media. Unlike traditional civil rights approaches that embraced incrementalism and systematic progress, CRT questioned the very foundations of the legal order. Since the 1980s, various disciplines have relied on this theory—most notably the fields of education, history, legal studies, feminist studies, political science, psychology, sociology, and criminal justice—to address the dynamics and challenges of racism in American society. While earlier narratives may have exclusively characterized the plight of African Americans against institutional power structures, later research has advocated the importance of understanding and highlighting the narratives of all people of color. Moreover, the theoretical lenses of CRT have broadened its spectrum to include frameworks that capture the struggles and experiences of Latinx, Asian, and Native Americans as well. Taken collectively, these can be regarded as critical race studies. Each framework relies heavily on certain principles of CRT, exposing the easily obscured and often racialized power structures of American society. Included among these principles (and related tenets) is white supremacy, white privilege, interest convergence, legal indeterminacy, intersectionality, and storytelling, among others. An examination of each framework reveals its remarkable potential to inform and facilitate an understanding of racialized practices within and across American power structures and institutions, including education, employment, the legal system, housing, and health care.

scholarly journals W.E.B. DuBois's “The Comet” and Contributions to Critical Race Theory: An Essay on Black Radical Politics and Anti-Racist Social Ethics

2006 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 22-48 ◽  
Author(s):  
Reiland Rabaka
Keyword(s):  
Critical Race Theory ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
White Supremacy ◽  
Social Ethics ◽  
Academic Disciplines ◽  
Critical Race ◽  
Race Theory ◽  
Legal Studies ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Law Professors

No longer considered the exclusive domain of legal studies scholars and radical civil rights lawyers and law professors, critical race theory has blossomed and currently encompasses and includes a wide range of theory and theorists from diverse academic disciplines. Its most prominent practitioners, initially law professors and “left scholars, most of them scholars of color” employing the work of the breathtakingly brilliant African American lawyer, scholar, and activist Derrick Bell (2005) as their primary point of departure, borrowed from many of the political and theoretical breakthroughs of black nationalism, anti-racist feminism, poststructuralism, and postmodernism. They also employed and experimented with new cutting-edge literary techniques and social science methodologies that shaped and shaded their work and burgeoning socio-legal discourse, ultimately giving it a fierceness and flair unheard of in the history of legal studies. Early critical race theorists' work acutely accented “the vexed bond between law and racial power” (Crenshaw, Gotanda, Peller & Thomas, 1995, p. xiii). The emphasis on race and power quickly led them to the critique of “white supremacy and the subordination of people of color,” not simply in the legal system, but in society as a whole (p. xiii).

Latinx Curriculum Theorizing

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ganiva Reyes
Keyword(s):  
Critical Race Theory ◽  
Education Reform ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Feminist Philosophy ◽  
Critical Race ◽  
Power Structures ◽  
Race Theory ◽  
Early 21St Century ◽  
Point Of Entry ◽  
Curriculum Theorizing

Latinx curriculum theorizing is a constellation of curriculum scholarship rooted in the histories, knowledges, and everyday lives of peoples from across the Latin American diaspora. It is a framework that pushes back against demonizing stereotypes, caricatures, and colonial generalizations of an entire diaspora. Born out of resistance and liberation, it comes from the histories and practices of Latinx peoples in creating counternarratives, education reform, and activism. Specifically, Latinx curriculum theorizing includes the following: (a) Latinidad as a collective point of entry, (b) Latinx as a term, (c) history and circumstance as curricular knowledge, (d) counternarratives and testimonio as curriculum theorizing, (e) cultural knowledges of Latinx students and community as theory, (f) cultural knowledges of Latinx teachers, and (g) Latinx communities generating critical pedagogies and education initiatives. Latinx curriculum theorizing draws from a variety of Latinx philosophical traditions, including critical race theory, Latina feminist philosophy, Latinx and Chicanx studies, and various strands of Latin American, Continental, Caribbean, and Africana philosophy. While scholars who do Latinx curriculum theorizing are trained in theories such as critical race theory, feminist theory, and post- and decolonial theories, because of the subject matter and the people, this framework is the next step up in putting such foundational theories into conversation with one another. It is therefore a newly emerging framework, in the early 21st century, because it draws upon all these perspectives to account for a very transitionary, contradictory, and messy Latinx experience. What makes something distinctly Latinx curriculum is an engagement with a state of transition and liminal spaces, both pedagogically and epistemologically, with the varied and multilayered trajectories of Latin American-origin realities. Far from being a monolithic and static framework, Latinx curriculum theorizing is itself malleable, contested, and in transition. Just as Latinx itself is a contested term within academic and activist spaces, Latinx curriculum theorizing is a point of contestation that makes it a framework with porous boundaries that can explain and even redefine the Latinx educational experience. As such, Latinx curriculum lends itself to nuanced analysis and praxis for issues of gender, sexuality, ethnicity, language, migration, racial hierarchies, and colonial legacies. This type of curriculum theorizing also points to power structures from multiple social locations and offers pathways for social change and liberation.

scholarly journals Color Crit: Critical Race Theory and the History and Future of Colorism in the United States

2018 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-25 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert L. Reece
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Critical Race Theory ◽  
Racial Inequality ◽  
Census Data ◽  
Black Americans ◽  
The United States ◽  
Skin Tone ◽  
Critical Race ◽  
Race Theory ◽  
American Society

Critical race theory teaches that racism and racial inequality are constants in American society that stand outside of the prejudices of individuals. It argues that structures and institutions are primarily responsible for the maintenance of racial inequality. However, critical race theorists have neglected to formally examine and theorize colorism, a primary offshoot of racial domination. Although studies of colorism have become increasingly common, they lack a unifying theoretical framework, opting to lean on ideas about prejudice and preference to explain the advantages lighter skinned, Black Americans are afforded relative to darker skinned Black Americans. In this study, I deploy a critical race framework to push back against preference as the only, or primary, mechanism facilitating skin tone stratification. Instead, I use historical Census data and regression analysis to explore the historical role of color-based marriage selection on concentrating economic advantage among lighter skinned Black Americans. I then discuss the policy and legal implications of developing a structural view of colorism and skin tone stratification in the United States and the broader implications for how we conceptualize race in this country.

In the End, There Is No Such Thing as Unconscious Racism: CRT/Asian American Crit Counterstories by Undergraduate Students During the Pandemic

2021 ◽  
pp. 153270862110540
Author(s):  
Jeremy Hau Lam ◽  
Katrina Le ◽  
Laurence Parker
Keyword(s):  
Critical Race Theory ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Asian American ◽  
White Supremacy ◽  
The United States ◽  
Critical Race ◽  
Asian American Women ◽  
Race Theory ◽  
Spring Semester ◽  
Honors College

This article emerged from undergraduate students in an Honors College class on critical race theory at the University of Utah during the spring semester 2020 during the pandemic. The counterstories evolve around critical race theory/Asian American Crit and the historical and current violence against the Asian American community in the United States. Given the recent anti-Asian American backlash which has emerged through the COVID-19 crisis, to the March 2021 murders of the Asian American women and others in Atlanta, we present these counterstories with the imperative of their importance for critical social justice to combat White supremacy.

Finding Grace

2020 ◽  
pp. 134-145
Author(s):  
Aeriel A. Ashlee
Keyword(s):  
Graduate Students ◽  
Critical Race Theory ◽  
Asian American ◽  
White Supremacy ◽  
Model Minority ◽  
Racial Microaggressions ◽  
First Year ◽  
Critical Race ◽  
Model Minority Myth ◽  
Race Theory

This chapter features a critical race counterstory from an Asian American womxn of color about her doctoral education and graduate school socialization. Framed within critical race theory, the author chronicles racial microaggressions she endured as a first-year higher education doctoral student. The author describes the ways in which the model minority myth is wielded as a tool of white supremacy and how the pervasive stereotype overlaps with the imposter syndrome to manifest in a unique oppression targeting Asian American graduate students. The author draws inspiration from Asian American activist Grace Lee Boggs, which helps her resist the intersectional oppression of white supremacy and patriarchy present within academia. The chapter concludes with recommendations to support womxn of color graduate students.

New Directions in Critical Race Theory and Sociology: Racism, White Supremacy, and Resistance

2019 ◽  
Vol 63 (13) ◽  
pp. 1731-1740 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michelle Christian ◽  
Louise Seamster ◽  
Victor Ray
Keyword(s):  
Critical Race Theory ◽  
Racial Inequality ◽  
White Supremacy ◽  
Sociological Theory ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Critical Race ◽  
Race Theory ◽  
Empirical Inquiry ◽  
New Directions ◽  
The Subject

Critical Race Theory (CRT) provides a highly generative perspective for studying racial phenomena in social, legal, and political life, but its integration with sociological theories of race has not been systematic. However, a group of sociologists has begun to show the relevance of CRT for driving empirical inquiry. This special issue (our first of two on the subject) shows the relevance of CRT for sociological theory and empirical research. In this introduction, we identify primary concerns of CRT and show their sociological utility. We argue that CRT better explains the long-standing continuity of racial inequality than theories grounded in “progress paradigm,” as CRT shows how racism and white supremacy are reproduced through multiple changing mechanisms.

scholarly journals Slaying the Leviathan: Critical Jurisprudence and The Treaty of Waitangi

1998 ◽  
Vol 28 (4) ◽  
pp. 683
Author(s):  
K Upston-Hooper
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Critical Race Theory ◽  
International Law ◽  
Critical Race ◽  
Critical Legal Studies ◽  
Race Theory ◽  
Legal Studies ◽  
Treaty Of Waitangi ◽  
Legal Thinking

This article considers the perspectives of four contributors to the current discourse on the Treaty of Waitangi: Professor Jane Kelsey, Dr Paul McHugh, Professor F M Brookfield and Moana Jackson.  The jurisprudential underpinnings of each authors arguments are examined.  The article focuses on the degree to which two new forms of jurisprudential thought, Critical Legal Studies and Critical Race Theory, have informed the Treaty discourse. The article concludes that, although such critical jurisprudence has yet to permeate New Zealand jurisprudence in any meaningful way, Critical Race Theory could help transform post-settler legal thinking. This article was awarded the Quentin-Baxter LLM prize in Public and International Law in 1997.

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